Meet the Real Kurt and Peg Anderson

Perhaps you have made the acquaintance of Kurt Anderson and Peg Anderson. These two educators profess to be experts in energizing organizations through personal and professional development. In fact, Kurt Anderson is the former superintendent of the Grayslake Elementary School District 46 in Grays Lake, Illinois, where Peg Anderson also taught.

Role Models for Professional Development?

You might want to ask Kurt Anderson how successful he was in “energizing” the Grays Lake School District 46 where he served five years of a six year term as superintendent. He was fired when he failed to secure passage of an important referendum and because he could not get along with the board or the teachers.

His relationship with the school board was very contentious. At his retirement one board member claimed that, “he has never had a conversation about education with the current board and he congratulated two principals who are leaving for districts where innovative programs are being used rather than a 1950s mentality.” *A staff member said the following of Kurt Anderson’s accomplishments: “Dr. Anderson stated there were “more highs than lows” during his tenure. Do the “highs” include losing elementary music and PE, as well as art, drama, band, chorus and Spanish at the middle school? Is the loss of the eighth-grade trip to Washington DC another high point? Is the random involuntary reassignment of teachers from positions that they had held successfully for years another highlight?”

Another staffer said of Anderson, “Kurt Anderson…was spending District 46 into a deep hole. A new school board was elected after the 4th referendum defeat. Dr. Anderson was replaced and the new board has not gone back to referendum and will be opening a new school in the fall of 2007 without a referendum.”

The board bought out the last year of Kurt Anderson’s contract because he failed to achieve passage of that important referendum. But before leaving, Anderson negotiated a 20 percent salary increase. By school district policy, his retirement is based on an average of his last three years income, so he got a nice big raise for the rest of his days at the expense of those whom he failed to serve.

Positive Examples of Personal and Professional Development?

The Andersons claim to have conducted seminars on personal and professional development around the world, including Japan. In fact, all Mrs. Anderson did in Japan was teach an occasional English class. Her Japanese was so poor that there is no way she would have been able to conduct a seminar in that language.

The Andersons first became romantically involved when Kurt’s wife, Cathy was dying of cancer.  Mr. Olson’s suspicions that there was someone else in the picture were confirmed when his wife planted a big kiss on Mr. Anderson’s lips at his wife’s funeral. He got further confirmation when he caught the two of them walking into the lobby of a movie theater hand-in-hand. Proof positive came when she checked into the hospital for what she told her husband were abdominal pains.  In fact, she had scheduled a tubal ligation. Spousal consent is required for this type of birth control procedure in Illinois as a safeguard against infidelity. Since the two weren’t even living together at this point, she certainly was not protecting herself against the sexual overtures of her husband.

When she divorced her husband, she turned his kids against him. She pushed him out of his home because she didn’t want him to tell them anything about her affair with Anderson. She refused to let him participate in decision making. He never saw a report card or took part in a parent teacher meeting. When her son became violent due to manic depression and suppressed rage over a sexual assault case involving a TEAM missionary, she and Anderson picked put him in one of the most expensive boarding schools in the nation without consulting the father and then came after him for the money. She confiscated all his letters to his son. The school was eventually closed down due to a lawsuit brought by a disgruntled parent who suffered the same ignominy.The young man did not even get a GED for the hundreds of thousands of dollars his parents spent on the school.

Peg Anderson has always spent every penny she has and then looked to others to get her out of financial binds. She took money from her husband’s bank account that did not belong to her – $2000 that had been given him to repay a personal loan. Then she refused to reimburse him or pay off the loan.

Mrs. Anderson has trouble forming intimate relationships. She does not understand that all healthy relationships require give and take, but tries to manipulate them to her advantage. She is very flirtatious and loves to be the object of male attention. She cannot be trusted with men other than her husband. She broke up three marriages, one in Japan where she and her husband served as missionaries,  and two in Illinois – her own and the marriage of the man who is now her husband.

Smart Enough to Get a Doctorate?

Peg Anderson somehow managed to get a doctoral degree in education despite struggling with simple concepts about finance and child rearing. She doesn’t think through things carefully but makes decisions on impulse. She has this notion that a parent should never deny her children anything they want and drove her husband out of his home because he tried to establish some expectations for the kids. She was told many times that the kids would never become responsible or learn to give to others. And, sure enough, she now has two children in their mid thirties who still depend on her. Her son Curt lives with her in Chicago and her daughter Heather and her husband live rent free in her condo in Colorado. Their mother finances their pedicab business. She certainly didn’t energize her own family.

What Is Professional Development?

So, before you buy the Kurt Anderson and Peg Anderson’s  sales pitch, consider what kind of people you are dealing with. Ask yourself, where in all that sizzle on their website is the bacon? How will you know if you got your money’s worth? What does it mean to ‘energize’ an organization, anyway? Better sales? Better human relations? A bigger bottom line? Does it mean harmonious and productive relationships with employees? Or, as in Anderson’s case,  does it mean “my way or the highway,” defining success in terms of one’s own personal agenda, and finger pointing when things go wrong?

If the Andersons are half as good as they profess to be, the Grays Lake District 46 would have passed its referendum, Kurt Anderson’s contract with the school district would have been renewed, and the children of District U46 would be enjoying a  much higher quality of education today. Furthermore, Peg Anderson’s children would be self sufficient and prospering in the mid thirties. If you want to pay a lot of money to people who can show no record of success in their professional or personal lives, then hire Kurt and Peg Anderson.

*Education Matters of CCSD 46, Posts from  Tuesday, June 14, 2005.  and July 18, 2006